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I wanted to start a thread about Books. Here we can suggest good books on a diverse range of topics.
So here is how this will work:

1. Suggest a book.
2. Give a brief summary on what the book is about.
3. Give your personal opinion of the book.

Ill start the list.

Currently, I’m reading Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell.
The book is designed to give real world knowledge of economics, to people who are not economics majors. I think it is very well written, easy to read and to the point. It is extensive enough that it discusses all aspects of a modern economy. I give the Book 9 out of 10.

Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley and Livingston by Martin Dugard

"Dr Livingston, I presume?"
The book is a complete documentary of Dr David Livingston and how he came to be trapped or lost in Africa, and about how a relatively unknown American journalist named Henry Morton Stanley managed to find him. Set against the backdrop of The Civil War in America, the age of great British explorers, the death of Arab slave trade in Africa, and the sheer remoteness of the interior Africa the book paints a picture of exploring at it's finest and most extreme. Geography; politics; morals; dedication; this book tells it all and does so in a really first rate manner.

I loved the book. In fact, I am on my second time through, and am comparing accounts to Stanley's book, "How I Found Dr Livingston".

I'm eagerly awaiting the latest volume of Robert Caro's huge biography of Lyndon Johnson, which comes out in a couple of weeks. It was originally intended to be three volumes, but this will be the fourth volume and it only takes us up to the Kennedy assassination.

The three volumes which have come out so far have been well worth the wait. Caro doesn't just tell a life story, he includes so much about what was happening in the world. In the first volume, he tells the life of rural Texas farm women so exhaustively (and exhaustingly), that you really understand how much Johnson's work for rural electrification meant to them. In "Master of the Senate" he spends a lot of time telling you about how the Senate works and what made Johnson such a master manipulator.

It's not a book necessarily for Johnson fans; Caro is very frank about the many things there are NOT to admire about him. It's terrific writing and an epic story.

"Today, [the American voter] chooses his rulers as he buys bootleg whiskey, never knowing precisely what he is getting, only certain that it is not what it pretends to be." - H.L. Mencken

I love the Kindle Ap for BlackBerry, which gets me through many a long meeting, and I'm always reading a couple of books at a time, depending on my mood. My current reading:

Thomas Sowell
Intellectuals and Society

Provides insights into the mindset of persons who make their living by peddling ideas to others who make their living by peddling ideas (i.e., public intellectuals whose sole product is ideology) and their real motivations. The critical argument is that the divergent worldviews between those who espouse intellectual solutions to any and all problems, real or not, and everybody else, is based on whether one sees people as capable of perfection or not. Those who see people as perfectable try to perfect them through intellectual fads, while those who hold a more tragic view, that people are inherently flawed and the best that we can hope for in our institutions is to keep us away from each others' throats, tend to have more modest goals. Every chapter is a revelation, and provides great ammunition for sparring with the left's self-appointed geniuses.

Charles Dickens
Great Expectations

Watching the Masterpiece Classic two-parter last week made me want to pick up the book, and as always, I'm glad that I did. The various movie versions are always very dramatic and ponderous, but the book is a masterpiece of dry wit, as Pip's first person observations of the manners and behavior of the people around him are completely ruthless and funny as hell. Watch the movies and have a good maudlin cry over Miss Havisham's tragedy, Pip's unrequited love and the various other characters' pathos, then read the book and laugh yourself silly.

In a nutshell, it's about the Lord of Winterfell becoming the Hand of the King of Westeros. There is a TON more to it, but that's the basic gist of it without gettinginto the sex, murder, and corruption. I know I can't be the only here that watches the tv show, but the book series is excellent and this is a great first chapter of the Song of Ice and Fire series.

On a sidenote, this is technically considered a "fantasy" book, but don't let that throw you off if you're not into that kind of thing. Yes there is magic and supernatural elements here, but they in the background and are done very subtlely. It's not like Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter(although I do *heart* those book series too)